“Yes.”
“Then I shall drink before I allow you to speak, mer kat, and Tiye must definitely hear what Atum showed you.”
“But Amunhotep—”
“No buts, Uncle. The boy was spawned from her body. Already she adores him and spends every afternoon in his nursery. He is completely healthy and suckles well. Amulets of protection surround him—”
Huy cut in, leaning towards him. “Majesty, he needs no protection against any Khatyu. No god wishes to unleash a force of demons against him—not yet.”
“Not yet? What does that mean? Senu!” he shouted. “Are you outside my door?”
At once the Chief Palace Herald appeared and sketched a bow. “Majesty?”
“Find the Empress, somewhere in the administrative quarter. She’s to come here at once. Escort her.”
Senu kept his expression bland, but Huy saw astonishment flit swiftly across his features. Amunhotep doesn’t often issue orders to Tiye, Huy reflected, and I wager she will be annoyed at both the summons and the interruption. Senu bobbed a reverence and went away, closing the door behind him, but it was reopened by a young man Huy did not know, a silver tray bearing a large flagon, a golden cup, and a dish of sweetmeats held ceremoniously before him.
“I don’t need a tedious repetition of the vintage, Tiawi,” Amunhotep said irritably, “and you can take the almond cakes away. I’m not hungry. Just pour and leave.”
Unperturbed, the man did as he was bidden, his movements fraught with solemnity, then turned to bow to Huy. “I am Royal Cup Bearer of Wine Si-Renenut, mer kat, recently appointed to the service of His Majesty. His Majesty and the members of my family call me Tiawi. May I fetch a cup for you also?”
“It would do the Seer no good unless it was laced with lotus flowers, Tiawi,” the King interposed.
Tiawi bowed again. “Unfortunately, the shipment of grape wine that arrived yesterday has not yet been opened,” he explained. “Therefore I have not tasted it nor set aside the required amount for the inclusion of the lotus. However, there are plenty of juices stored beside the kitchens.”
Huy would have liked a cup of pomegranate juice. His mother and the family’s one servant, Hapzefa, used to make it after every harvest and the taste would have brought back to him the security and peace of his earliest years at Hut-herib. But Amunhotep waved Tiawi away. “Thank you, Tiawi,” he snapped. “You may go.”
Tiawi managed to include Huy in his bow. Then, tray in hand, he backed away, bowed once more, and went out.
“I have four wine and beer bearers now,” Amunhotep said. “Tiye complains that I’m getting fatter because of the amount I drink, but as long as I’m able to hunt and satisfy my women, why should I care? Egypt is in more capable hands than mine anyway. You and she took over the government years ago.” He raised the cup and took a mouthful of wine.
“Your mother and I raised you to govern, not Tiye,” Huy reminded him sharply. “As for me, I would like nothing better than to pass the reins of Egypt’s control back to you and spend my time with Thothmes and Nasha, or overseeing the progress of the tomb you have graciously allowed me to place between those of your mighty forebears the Osiris-ones Thothmes the First and the Second of that name, or choosing the final decorations for my totem’s new temple. Why are you suddenly so peevish, Majesty?”
Amunhotep smiled faintly over the rim of his cup. Huy could see that he was doing his best to regain his good humour. “I don’t know, Uncle,” he admitted ruefully. “I want to be bathed and dressed and then visit my stables. I ought to be more than eager to learn the details of the Seeing now that I’ve waited for months, but if something appalling waits to overtake the Prince years from now, why do I need to concern myself with it today?”
Huy was saved from answering. The doors were flung back and Tiye swept into the room followed by her body servant Heria, carrying her spare sandals, whisk, and cosmetic box, Chief Palace Herald Senu, Tiye’s steward, the King’s steward Nubti, and a couple of palace guards. The room was suddenly full of bowed heads.
“Senu, you should have told me that the Seer was here,” Tiye said as she passed Huy without acknowledging his obeisance and settled herself into the vacant chair next to her husband. “Nubti, bring me a footrest and another cup—I might as well refresh myself. Chief Treasurer Sobekhmose and I have been talking together ever since I left the audience chamber and my throat is dry.” Coolly her eyes met Huy’s. She was wearing a sheath of pale green that emphasized the red lights in her loose hair. Her jewellery, from the circlet on her brow to the anklets on her half-hidden feet, was made of gold unrelieved by any embellishment. Even the rings on each of her fingers were bereft of any stone, the patterns on them etched into the metal. Huy thought that she looked magnificent and powerful, the impression of self-assurance evident in her heavily lidded eyes and the cruel downward turn of her hennaed mouth. Still in her mid-twenties, she exuded the authority of complete competence.
We worked so well together, you and I, in the days when we argued ourselves and the various ministers into policies from which grew the empire Egypt now controls, he said to her mutely. I wish that we had remained friends.
Nubti was approaching with a small footrest, which he set on the floor in front of her, and another cup. Half filling it with wine, he bowed and retreated.
Tiye swung her feet onto the footrest, took a mouthful of wine, and set the cup down loudly on the table between herself and Amunhotep. “Well?” she said sharply to Huy. “The gods know I’ve waited quite long enough for this revelation. What did Anubis show to you in the matter of the Prince’s future?”
She glanced at Paneb as though uninterested in him, but a brief twist of what Huy could only interpret as jealousy marred her face. The lowly scribe Paneb already knows what you do not, Huy thought.
Amunhotep raised his voice. “Leave us, all of you. Wait in the passage. Nubti, Seer Huy will come for you when we have finished.” Obediently they all bowed themselves out. The double doors closed behind them and Amunhotep’s attention returned to Huy. He reached across the small table to grasp Tiye’s hand. “You look pale, Uncle,” he said kindly to Huy. “Perhaps you should sit after all.”
A sudden weakness was beginning to make Huy’s knees tremble. Dragging a stool from Amunhotep’s cosmetics table, he placed it before them and sank onto it gratefully.
“Now, Uncle, tell us everything. You wear blue in order to warn us, don’t you?” Huy saw him tighten his hold on Tiye, whose gaze was already fixed coldly on Huy’s face.
At Huy’s signal Paneb went to the floor and prepared to record the proceedings. He had not been ordered to leave with the other servants. I want an accurate account of everything said today, and so does Amunhotep, Huy decided. He’s not as obtuse as he would like his courtiers to think. Clearing his throat, trying not to clench his fists, Huy began.
He spoke of the strange city in which he had found himself, the malformed body of the King who stood with several women and girls above the crowd, the awarding of the Gold of Favours, the distressing answers to Huy’s questions given by Anubis in the guise of the anonymous man beside him. He spoke of temples left empty, priests turned out to wander begging from village to village, the gods’ storehouses cleared of gold and grain that went into the silos of the Aten and its worshippers at Akhet-Aten while the rest of Egypt starved. Paneb’s brush remained poised over the papyrus on his palette as Huy repeated the details of the vision already copied and filed away. As Huy went on, Amunhotep sat frozen, oblivious to the wine cup resting on his thigh or Tiye’s fingers curled tightly around his own. Tiye’s eyes stayed fixed on Huy. He was able to read nothing in them. At his first words a dull red had flushed her cheeks, fading almost at once to a patchy sallowness, and her features had gone blank, but he could see the gradual tensing of the rest of her body.
Today I am atoning for the loss of courage I displayed before the Osiris-one Amunhotep the Second, he thought as his bleak words filled the room. I am discharg
ing my debt to you, Ma’at, and to you, mighty Atum. If the hyena is haunting me because of that perfidy, dismiss it, I beg you, and let me live out the remainder of my days in peace!
When there was nothing left to say, no detail overlooked, he closed his mouth. A deep silence descended. Neither the King nor Tiye moved, and Huy, free at last from an oppressive burden, felt a tide of giddy elation spread out from his dry throat and surge along his limbs, leaving them limp with relief. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Paneb dip his brush into the ink and hold it ready, but still the pair were motionless. A low murmur of conversation from the group of servants waiting outside the door came drifting faintly through the wood. The odour of Tiye’s perfume mingled with the King’s sweat. The blend seemed to intensify, hanging both acrid and unpleasantly magnetic in the still air. Finally Huy left the stool, and at his movement Amunhotep let go his grip on his wife’s fingers, unsteadily set the cup he had been holding on the table, and bent forward. When he spoke, his voice was reedy.
“Let me be sure I understand,” he said. “You are telling me that my son will grow up to be physically deformed, inherit the Horus Throne, blaspheme against every one of Egypt’s deities but the Visible Disc, and desert Amun’s home for a new city? This is the future Anubis showed you?”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“I will have no more legitimate sons besides Prince Thothmes, who is already destined to die, and my princely namesake, who will deliberately destroy everything precious in this country and leave us at the mercy of famine and disease?”
“Yes, Majesty. Since the day when Anubis showed me these things, when I took the baby’s hand in my own, I have been overwhelmed by what I saw and heard.”
“He will render Amun powerless?” The King looked increasingly puzzled, as though confused by Huy’s words and yet impelled to contradict their clarity.
Huy was about to reply when Tiye loudly slapped one hennaed palm on the surface of the table and sprang to her feet. “It’s a lie! All a lie!” she said through gritted teeth. “You gave this … this peasant more power to rule than anyone else in the realm, ignoring the years of faithful service my older brother Ay devoted to you, and my parents to your father before that! Anen, my younger brother, still wears the simple robes of a priest although he should be here at court where his talents would not be wasted. As for myself …” She faced her husband, placing both hands on the table and inclining stiff-armed towards him. “As for myself, my competence to govern Egypt is only required when the Son of Hapu is away on some errand of his own. This so-called vision is nothing but a ploy to make sure that every fully royal son dies. Then you will be forced to name one of the male bastards born to any one of your harem women as the Horus-in-the-Nest and grant him legitimization by marrying him to one of our daughters. And you may be sure that the boy will be chosen by Huy himself!”
Huy knelt, holding his arms out palms up in the universal gesture of submission. “Not only will he render Amun powerless, he will send masons throughout Egypt to obliterate the names of every god but the Aten,” he said clearly and deliberately to Amunhotep, forcing the King to hold his gaze. “In removing the name of Amun, he not only commits the gravest blasphemy against Egypt’s saviour, he annihilates you also. You are the Incarnation of Amun. Your name contains the name of the god, but if it is excised, your ka will be lost.”
“This is not to be believed.” Amunhotep shook his head and slumped back in his chair. “What have I done to deserve such a fate? What evil has Egypt done, that Ma’at should desert her? No, Uncle. Your vision must be false, and if not false, then you have misinterpreted what you saw.”
“What a kind assumption you make, my husband!” Tiye broke in sarcastically. She folded her arms and, brushing past Huy, began to pace. He was no longer able to read her expression. “How generous you are! ‘Misinterpreted’? What proof have we that our trusty mer kat was granted any vision at all? Only his word and the word of his scribe, who will of course swear on behalf of his master.”
Amunhotep ignored her. “I have known you all my life, Huy,” he said quietly, “and indeed when I was still a baby in my mother’s arms with no claim to the Horus Throne you saw me bathed in royal gold. Through the years you have served and protected me, and worked tirelessly to give me an empire. You’ve grieved with me at the deaths of my children, deaths predicted by your visions. It was very hard for you to tell me that my beloved Prince Thothmes would not outlive me. Now you confess a future for me and my country more terrible than I could ever have imagined.” His voice faltered. Lifting his cup from the table, he drank deeply, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shift. “Without the history of many accurate Seeings behind you, I might agree with the Empress,” he continued. “As it is, we must discover how this future might be averted. Get up! And you, Tiye, such outbursts do no good. You hate Huy for matters beyond his control.”
On the contrary, you hate me for everything within my control, Huy thought as he regained the stool and watched her return to perch rigidly on the edge of her chair.
“There are many feast days for Osiris this month,” Amunhotep went on. “We will beg him for his wisdom, and you and I, Tiye, will process to Ipet-isut at every sunrise, and while the Holiest of Holiest is open so that the High Priest may minister to Amun, we will prostrate ourselves and ask what it is that we have done wrong.”
“But we’ve done nothing wrong!” Tiye protested hotly. “If the Son of Hapu speaks the truth, which I still doubt, the seeds of disaster are in our son, not in ourselves!” She reached across the little table and gripped his forearm with both hands. “We must watch over him at all times, choose his tutors with the utmost care, make sure he learns to sincerely venerate the gods, teach him the correct position the Visible Disc holds! Then he will have no inclination to drift into heresy.”
As Huy listened to their interchange, an agitation grew in him that he dared not show. Your father and grandfather openly preferred to worship the sun in all his aspects, and Ra’s priests encouraged the enmity that ensued between them and the servants of Amun. Amun is superior, the essence of godhead. The Aten is merely one of Ra’s energies, his rays of light, the Visible Disc striking the earth and becoming lions. Unfortunately, it’s a far more exciting concept for a boy to imagine than Amun the Great Cackler with his double plumes. Lions are the representations of the rays of both Amun and Ra. The Aten is the rays themselves. Aten worship has been a court religion for hentis. It’s always been too sophisticated, too complex, to appeal to the ordinary citizen. This second royal son will make it his obsession. “Majesty, Anubis did not so much as hint at a way out—none at all!” Huy addressed Tiye directly. “Everything I saw in that gleaming new city seemed distorted, every face in the crowd marked with a despair that only I could see. The Prince is already cursed. His affliction will spread.”
Amunhotep shook himself free of his wife’s grasp and, picking up his cup, stared into the dregs. The cup trembled in his grasp.
Tiye went very still. “Then what does Anubis want His Majesty to do with our poor little cursed Prince?” she whispered venomously, eyes half shut. “Surely he does not expect Amunhotep to violate a law of Ma’at and thus become a feast for Ammut beneath Ma’at’s scales in the Judgment Hall when his heart inevitably weighs more heavily than her feather? Oh, but I forgot.” She made a parody of recollection. “The King does not undergo the test of the Judgment Hall. He ascends to ride in the sacred barque with his royal ancestors. He is thus exempt from any punishment for his abuses—but Egypt is not. Egypt suffers in his place. So I ask you again, mer kat, Great Seer, what does Anubis expect my husband to do with his son? That is, if your vision spoke true at all.”
“Enough!” Amunhotep’s voice was unsteady. “Leave us alone now, Uncle. Go home and stay there until you’re summoned. Paneb, give me my copy of the Seeing. Send Nubti and Tiawi in at once. You’re both dismissed.”
Huy rose carefully. It was too much to expect that the King would simply take my
word for this Seeing, he thought in a brief burst of panic that had every one of his muscles suddenly tensed for flight. When he reads the full account, it will seem so preposterous to him, so blasphemous, that any hope I had of belief on his part will be gone. As for Tiye, she will demand my punishment and use every argument she can muster against me. “Paneb, give me both scrolls,” he said quietly. Paneb left the floor with ease, reaching into his pouch and handing them over. Huy stood looking down at them, two neat curls of papyrus, while the rich possessions he had worked to amass over his lifetime grew flimsy, shredded, and blew away, leaving him as naked and vulnerable as a child.
“Majesty, I have not told you everything,” he said huskily, holding the scrolls out to him with shaking hands. “Many years ago, before you married Amunhotep, I Scryed for you, Tiye. Anubis showed me the King’s coronation day with you beside him, resplendent in the formal garb of a Queen, but that was only the first part of the vision. I kept the second part to myself because I wanted the marriage to take place, and the will of Atum was not clear. However, I did dictate all of it.” He swallowed. “The whole vision of the baby Prince Amunhotep’s future that I received is on this other scroll. Anubis showed me more than I have dared to say. I am too afraid to put it into words. You will understand when you read it, and I beg you, both of you, to remember as you do so that I have served Egypt and the Horus Throne with complete loyalty.”
Tiye’s arm went out, but Amunhotep snatched the scrolls first and held them securely in his lap. “Does anyone else know the full extent of what these contain?” he demanded sharply.
Huy hesitated before deciding that the time for deceit, even kindly deceit to spare another’s pain, was long past. “I discussed the contents of the older vision with your royal Mother in her capacity as Regent,” he acknowledged, and did not go on to say that Mutemwia had also thought it best to keep silent regarding any description in its entirety. Tiye had gone white. Both hennaed lips were clamped tightly closed. The King merely looked pensive.
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